[HD7970GHZ]

You are not alone... 🐻

[stopdog]

Isn't this what TELL is about?
TELL: Therapy Exploitation Link Line

[LabRat27]

Thank you for this.

Anyone else feel like theirs wasn't "bad enough"?
It was unethical therapy, but I wouldn't say that I was exploited.
It wasn't intentionally abusive, but there were definite ethical violations and 10 years later it still affects me.

[downandlonely]

I'm sorry you all went through this.

[musinglizzy]

I am in the same boat as you. Choices my therapist made only made things much, much worse, and four years later, still affect me a great deal. I have been damaged by therapy. And unfortunately, continue to be.

[AllHeart]

Thank you for this, HD. Coming up on the 1 year mark of the last time I saw my unethical ex-t in person. That was the day she annihilated my soul.

[MRT6211]

I had two unethical exT’s in a row. So much damage was done. I almost died as a result.

[Favorite Jeans]

I am mostly over it but occasionally get overwhelmed by anger at my last unethical therapist. I wasn't exploited in the sense of sexual abuse (and certainly I've heard stories way worse than mine) but I think that encouraging someone to be vulnerable with their pain/shame/whatever when you are incompetent and have terrible boundaries is, in itself, a form of exploitation. Nothing more egregious needs to happen. Accepting the client's money just adds an extra level.

[precaryous]

I had two unethical T’s in a row, too. It took me a while to realize I was being exploited by both. They didn’t help me...they kept me sick and made me worse. Then they made me question my own sanity.

Combined events point to the probability that the second was trying to manipulate me and get me institutionalized because he was afraid I would tell people what was happening.

I was hospitalized several times by the first subsequent good therapist. I almost died.

I will never get over it. There’s no trauma therapy that’s going to fix this.

[missbella]

Originally Posted by LabRat27

Thank you for this.

Anyone else feel like theirs wasn't "bad enough"?
It was unethical therapy, but I wouldn't say that I was exploited.
It wasn't intentionally abusive, but there were definite ethical violations and 10 years later it still affects me.

Yes, I feel the same way. I wasn't exploited sexually. I might have been bullied and manipulated by others, but from a therapist it has real impact. I lost my grievance. Apparently therapists believe telling a client "something about you makes me want to kick you" is within the realm of ethical practice.

[junkDNA]

I just wish it was more discussed and had more awareness. The few times I made the mistake of sharing what I went through to someone IRL... They all asked why it was a problem because we both consented. I don't tell anyone anymore. Most people don't understand the difference in a therapeutic relationship. I do feel that it has an inherent power imbalance. I'm not interested in starting a debate on therapists actually having power or not. I speak from my own experience and from what I know about myself and what I went thru. I wish the government would also recognize this and make it illegal in every state (sexual exploitation). I also wish unethical therapists who harm clients were more disciplined and thoroughly looked at. That is another example in my mind of the power imbalance.... Therapists can just say "oh that person is crazy. They're overreacting or making it up" and their words and perceptions automatically sound more valid and believeable

[Ididitmyway]

Thank you for this reminder. It's important for everyone who was harmed in therapy to remember that they are not alone.

My biggest wish is for this issue to be more widely recognized and validated. But that depends on how openly and courageously each one of us speaks out about this publicly. No one notices you until you make noise, don't go away and make people notice you.

My other wish is for all survivors to accept each others experiences and their ways of coping and healing without judgments. My way of understanding and overcoming this trauma may be different from yours and yours may be different from mine. This does not invalidate either one.

Way too often I see victims of this abuse lashing out at each other and hurting each other just because they feel like a different way in which someone else processes traumatic experience somehow invalidates their own experience, their own personal story. This attitude diminishes the potential benefit of any support group and often makes such groups more hurtful than helpful for some members. At the time when such little (next to nothing) support and so few resources are available to survivors, it seems to me like the last thing we all need is to **** on each other. Whatever the differences of opinion we might have on this subject, I believe, it's perfectly possible to express it respectfully without the intention to hurt and then to continue to support those who might disagree with us on one thing or another, because this is a wise and compassionate thing to do.

[here today]

Originally Posted by junkDNA

I just wish it was more discussed and had more awareness. The few times I made the mistake of sharing what I went through to someone IRL... They all asked why it was a problem because we both consented. I don't tell anyone anymore. Most people don't understand the difference in a therapeutic relationship. I do feel that it has an inherent power imbalance. I'm not interested in starting a debate on therapists actually having power or not. I speak from my own experience and from what I know about myself and what I went thru. I wish the government would also recognize this and make it illegal in every state (sexual exploitation). I also wish unethical therapists who harm clients were more disciplined and thoroughly looked at. That is another example in my mind of the power imbalance.... Therapists can just say "oh that person is crazy. They're overreacting or making it up" and their words and perceptions automatically sound more valid and believeable

I know, too, and here's where if other people can't understand because they haven't experienced it, some kind of "natural science" could help maybe. The power imbalance, and/or "transference" and our own stuff, activates some kind of look-to-the-powerful-helpful authority in some of us. Not everybody that goes to therapy, apparently, is susceptible to this and I don't think that it is necessary to know or speculate about what possible kind of parental behavior might have contributed to some of us being susceptible to this. Although it seems that it has helped the therapists to try to identify why some of us are like this.

There seems to me to be enough anecdotal and other evidence to justify more intensive, rigorous study about this.

The therapists are usually oriented toward doing therapy and "helping with" whatever is there, but the look-to-the-powerful-authority response that is seemingly automatic and not fully conscious or a matter of choice for some of us -- well, I guess that gets into a (social) debate about free will and choice and etc., etc. I think the response could be studied without all that social stuff, if anybody were interested. But what to study and what gets funded gets back into the social arena.

[LabRat27]

Originally Posted by missbella

Yes, I feel the same way. I wasn't exploited sexually. I might have been bullied and manipulated by others, but from a therapist it has real impact. I lost my grievance. Apparently therapists believe telling a client "something about you makes me want to kick you" is within the realm of ethical practice.

Ouch. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that... she sounds awful.
Mine never said anything that horrible, but she did tell me that she didn't think any other therapist would put up with me, which is a pretty terrible thing to say to a 14 year old. I wasn't even a particularly difficult client at that age.

[missbella]

Originally Posted by LabRat27

Ouch. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that... she sounds awful.
Mine never said anything that horrible, but she did tell me that she didn't think any other therapist would put up with me, which is a pretty terrible thing to say to a 14 year old. I wasn't even a particularly difficult client at that age.

LR, I was a mousy, deferential 30-something, and the psychologist of the two-person team called me a difficult case. All I wanted to do was leave which is hardly difficult. I suspect we might have threatened their vanity, so they lashed out. They’re supposed to stop themselves when a client upsets them. I agree; you report an unconscionable thing for a therapist to day to anyone, much less a 14-year-old.

[toomanycats]

I hesitate to call my exT unethical, because I still love and am in contact w/ him.
I don't know.
(not a sexual relationship - never was)

[inmydreams]

Its been 3 years and I am still a mess I feel like I will never get over it.

[DP_2017]

I agree, hearing stories would be interesting/helpful but I also get the reluctance to share them here.

I am sorry for all of you who had to go through stuff like this. Cyber hugs for you all.

[missbella]

Most, if not all, here have posted our experiences detailing what happened. We’re people, not tv shows.

[DP_2017]

I'm not sure I've seen those posts?? Anyway.... yes of course you're people but people sharing stories is part of the human connection.

[toomanycats]

https://forums.psychcentral.com/5673441-post9.html

mine.

[missbella]

We’re not here to be interesting. My blog link below elaborates on my experience. This might be the best resource on therapy exploitation.
TELL: Therapy Exploitation Link Line

[mcl6136]

I live in a small town and there are moments when I am struck, four years later, by the fear of running into my ex T. I don't know how I would handle it. That's how I know that I'm still really affected by his games, manipulations, and the insistence that I stay in therapy with him long after it became a sick mind game.

[Taylor27]

8 1/2 years ago i left a very emotional controlling counsellor, it was very hard for me to leave i did not know much about therapy and how it wrong the relationship i had with her was. I now have a good pyschologist and good support groups i belong to now. Hugs to everyone

[missbella]

I rarely discuss harmful therapy often in real life because people become threatened. But then the profession has scant discussion of harm in therapy, which I take as evidence they find the subject threatening too.